The How To Channel

Monday, December 23, 2013

How To Make Beef Jerky

Beef jerky is an all time favorite, and a great way to preserve a meat. So how do we go about making jerky? There's only a few slight differences you can make to make it, but the slight differences can change the taste. Here we go:

First make sure you have beef, some marinade, a dehydrator an oven or firepit, and some time to keep an eye on it.

Second, cut the beef into thin slices. This makes it better for dehydration and easier to eat.

Third get your dehydrator, oven, or firepit started. Dehydrator is the easiest all you have to do is put it on there, an oven you have to keep cracked open and on a low temperature, a fire you hang it above the fire and keep the fire lit.

Fourth, put the marinade on the meat. Might be a mixture of garlic powder, Worcester sauce, and pepper. You could use something you created as well!

Fifth, keep it on your device using to dehydrate for many hours and wait until all the moisture has been dried out of it. Once you reach this point it should be just about done and ready for eating or storage.

Friday, December 20, 2013

How To Make A Wooden Bowl

Making a wooden bowl depends on what kind of wood you have. Do you have a log, or do you have a chunk of wood from your local home repair store? There's a few different ways to go about this, so ill put the most common ones.

1. Wood Turning

If you are going to do wood turning you will need wood from the store. Basically, what this does is it you rotate the wood slowly and scrape off wood with a chisel. There's special kinds of chisels for this. With this way you can make a very nice bowl and it can be somewhat symmetrical. This takes a little strength to do, so make sure your chisels are strong as well. After you do this, you should get a salad bowl finish so you can eat out of it.

2. Burning

For burning you really don't need anything special. Just a log and a knife. Maybe some matches and kindling too. To start off you just set the log on it's side and carve a tiny hole so you can put kindling and twigs in to to burn. After that, you just keep the fire lit and let it burn the inside of the log out. You should be cooking your freshly caught fish or whatever you got while you do this. Remember to multitask. Keep that fire burning and carve out the sides with your knife every so often. Eventually you should have a bowl shape, and all you have to do (to keep it natural) is just soak it in olive oil for a while to give it a natural finish. It's really that simple just hard work. This method will usually get the inside pretty symmetrical.

3. Hammer and Chisel

It really doesn't matter which kind of wood you use in this process. This process will not get it 100% symmetrical but you can normally make it look alright. You just chisel out the shape of a bowl carefully, and sand it down afterwards. Then you should finish it with either olive oil or salad bowl finish. Its up to you.

Simple process, lots of work. It's a project that's definitely worth doing, and will prove to be productive for you.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

How To Make Non Alcoholic Ginger Ale

Ginger ale is one of those drinks thats it's hard to get tired of. Especially if you made it yourself. It always has that nice type of bitterness for a cold winter, and it can soothe stomach aches. So why not learn to make your own.

What you'll need:

1 cup peeled and finely chopped ginger

3 cups water

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup club soda

a few drops of lime juice

lime wedges for garnishing

Now here's how you do it:

1. Boil 2 cups of water in a saucepan

2. Add the ginger and reduce heat to a simmer

3. After 5 minutes of simmering let it cool for 20 minutes

4. Strain the liquid using a fine mesh strainer (or cheese cloth)

5. In another pan mix 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water and boil it. When the sugar is dissolved its ready.

6. Now mix the ginger water club soda and the mixture you made in step 5.

How To Make Glue

Ahh glue, we meet again. Doesn't it remind you of those annoying cut and paste sheets that the teacher always assigned to you in kindergarten? It sure does with me.

Anyways, on my most recent project (The Chinese Paper Armor Project) I have run into a slight issue. It's the cost of glue. This project uses a lot to harden the tiles so I decided I was going to learn to make my own for when I run out (very soon). That's exactly what I did.

You know how when you hold sugar sometimes it makes your hand sticky? That's because the sugar is mixing with the moisture on your hand. That's why it will be one of our ingredients on this small project. Do you also know how flour is used to thicken soups and other liquid foods? We are going to use that to make it like a paste!

First you are going to want to get a bowl with water in it. Then you add a lot of sugar until it wont mix in anymore (or until you feel like stopping). Just make sure you get a decent amount in there so it will be sticky. Now start adding some flour. This should make the liquid start turning a milky white. Try to make this a little runny but not watery. It should be paste like. Once this happens, cover it with plastic wrap and cool it.

After you are done cooling it for a few hours, it should be ready for use! Good luck on your next project!